One category of information extraction employs query expansion and other query processing techniques in search engines. Conventional query expansion techniques generate an expanded output query from an original query, where the expanded output query includes additional words obtained from a synonym dictionary. The results of the expanded output query are documents that contain either the keywords of the original query or the additional words from the synonym dictionary. Being based on a natural language dictionary (e.g., standard English dictionary), the synonym dictionary is limited in its ability to match certain text pattern variations related to punctuation, spacing, new lines between words, arbitrary capitalization, colloquial abbreviations, etc. Further, known query processing techniques that employ stemming and stop word removal decrease precision in information retrieval results. Another category of information extraction is rule-based and utilizes regular expressions. Conventional tools (e.g., Expresso offered by Ultrapico) in this second category allow a programmer to generate a regular expression using a graphical user interface and to check the syntax of a generated regular expression. These known regular expression generation tools are hampered by restricted usability because their users are required to have knowledge of the formulation and usage of syntactic constructs in regular expressions. Thus, there exists a need to overcome at least one of the preceding deficiencies and limitations of the related art.